Title: THOSE BETTER ANGELS OF OUR NATURE Author: CindyET Rating: NC-17 (Graphic Sexual Content, Violent Themes, Language) Classification: V, MSR Spoilers: Post-ep for Kill Switch. Quotes from Anasazi, The Walk, Wetwired, Mind's Eye, and Folie A Deux. Summary: "It was war that destroyed Leonard Trimble's body... but his wounds went deeper than the loss of his limbs... What destroyed those parts of him that make us human beings? Those better angels of our nature? I cannot say." -- Fox Mulder in The Walk "What are we but impulses? Electrical and chemical through a bag of meat and bones. You're the scientist. You tell me." -- Fox Mulder in Kill Switch Disclaimer: The characters Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, Alex Krycek, and Margaret Scully are the property of Chris Carter, FOX and 1013 Productions. No copyright infringement intended. This is for fun, not profit. Author's notes: The Church of X Monthly Fanfic Challenge provided the impetus to explore a missing scene from Kill Switch, perhaps my favorite (non-humorous) episode. Could the nightmarish virtual reality Mulder experienced at the whim of the Artificial Intelligence have seemed real enough to cause lasting effects? THOSE BETTER ANGELS OF OUR NATURE "Those weren't dreams, Fox. You poor thing. But I warned you. Nurse Nancy warned you. You have to tell them, Fox. You have to." Taffy-haired and palliate-lipped, the Playboy Bunny nurse cajoles him with the voice of a bubble-gum snapping teen. "Tell them what?" On his back, he feels trapped in his illusory hospital bed while electricity surges beneath the surface of his skin, cell-to-cell, jittering toward his spine, corkscrewing upward into his skull where it circles his cerebellum. Or maybe that's backwards. Perhaps the current is running the reverse course, gushing outward from his brain, flooding his over-sensitive skin from head to foot. "About the Kill Switch," she explains matter-of-factly. "Nobody asked me anything." "You've just forgotten, Fox." "No." He's certain. He thinks he's certain. Or maybe not. "I was there," she insists, mirroring his distress with a cute pout. "The doctor asked and he was very cross when you refused to answer. But he'll be here in just a few minutes, and you can tell him then." She talks to him like an anxious child. He is an anxious child. "I--" "Otherwise, whoops! There go your legs." She can't mean it, can she? Amputate his legs? For what? He looks down, comforted for just a moment by the sight of his knees hilling the blankets. But his arms...his arms are...Jesus! Puckered stumps protrude from his shoulders. Adrenaline sweeps through him, sluicing him with a tide of nausea and the prickle of broiling sweat. "Scully? Scully?" Struggling to rise, he can only rock side-to-side. His missing limbs throb with phantom pain. Nurse Nancy fades away, swallowed by the misty edges of the room...or perhaps she simply walks out the door. Alone, he panics. Blood flushes through the capillaries of his face until he appears cooked from the inside out. His rising brows draw together over wet eyes, corrugating the skin of his forehead. "Scully, help. Help! Scul-lay!" Please. Please. Where are you? "I'm here." A voice in the dark. Hers. Thank God. "Scully...th-they cut off my arms." Footsteps. "You're having a nightmare," she soothes, settling on the edge of his bed, her weight so slight the mattress doesn't shift. She runs a palm along his jaw and her thumb massages the perspiration pooling in the creases of his neck. "Is it the same dream?" His Adam's apple shudders beneath her fingertips and he's shocked at how frightened he feels. "They cut off my arms," he repeats. Appalled by the lingering sting just below his shoulders, he almost whimpers. "They...cut--" "Shhhh. It didn't really happen." "Felt...real." "I know." Her fingers skim the fine hairs of his chest. Back and forth, back and forth, lulling him. "The AI...what it did to you...it was the worst kind of assault. It raped your mind." He turns his face away, doesn't want to discuss it. "You can't keep ignoring the effects of the experience, Mulder. You're suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. These nightmares--" "I don't need a lesson on PTSD." His voice crackles. "I *am* a psychologist, remember?" Although her stroking stalls and her fingers vacate his chest, she is far from abandoning him to petulance. She grips his jaw in her fist and drags his focus to meet her own. Her pinpoint pupils breach his blinking surprise, rupturing his antipathy like a festering blister speared by a surgeon's needle. "Mulder, it wants the Kill Switch." "Scul--?" A painful squeeze of her fingers startles him into silence. Uncertainty natters through him when she releases his jaw to draw a hair-trigger line from his sternum to the swell of his neck. "You do have it, don't you, Mulder? You have the Kill Switch?" Her flinty timbre threatens his sanity. "Scully, please. Don't." Pressure at his larynx, again...again...her thumbnail drives incrementally into his throat until his last word gurgles through his windpipe. This has happened before. How many times? Dozens? Thousands? Snared on a merry-go-round of nightmares, he hopes, as always, to grab her wrists and yank her fists away -- but he can't find his own hands. No fingers. No arms. Does he still have legs? Or is he already a quadriplegic, like Leonard Trimble, Gulf War vet who walked only in dreams? Ironically Mulder's paralysis sucker-punches him 'round the clock. Sleep isn't an option. He feels like the anti-Rappo. He thinks he hears his trachea snap beneath Scully's pressing thumb, cutting off his voice and his breath. In the end, she betrays him. Hasn't she done it before? "Mulder, don't shoot him! Just back away." Krycek is suddenly caught between the barrels of Mulder's gun and Scully's. The shift of scene, of time, makes Mulder stagger. The sidewalk outside his building, the night air, his anger -- didn't this happen years ago? Could this be deja vu? Or maybe the standoff with Krycek, with Scully, was a premonition the first time around and now it's actually-- Oh, god, Scully's weapon drifts, points at him. She can't mean to do this, shoot him. It's unthinkable, as unlikely as her grip on his throat. As unlikely as having his arms cut off. "He killed my father, Scully." Jesus, he hates this man Krycek. "I have him, Mulder," she insists, but it's himself who is in her sites, not Krycek. She's pulling the trigger; he can see her finger in the honed light of the streetlamp. "No, Scully..." This can*not* be Scully, he thinks. He hopes. This is a hallucination generated by the Artificial Intelligence. Somehow it knows she once shot him. Saw the FBI records via the Bureau's mainframe. It's using the information now to...to...to what? What does the damn thing want? Scully's bullet tears through him, his shoulder splits, the wound burns. Knocked to the ground, he feels the searing shock of her disloyalty. He thought he could trust her. She was the only one he trusted. "Dana, you're not yourself. He's telling you the truth," Margaret Scully's unsteady voice insists from somewhere beside him. He is standing at the threshold of Mrs. Scully's livingroom and again -- or maybe still -- Scully points her gun at his chest. "It's not the truth, Mom. He's lied to me from the beginning." More betrayal, but this time the treachery is his. Scully doesn't lower her weapon. "He's never trusted me." That's not true, Scully. Please put down the gun. I need you. If I can't trust you-- "You're in on it. You're one of them. You're one of the people who abducted me. You put that thing in my neck. You killed my sister!" Her indictment shreds him with its bulls-eye accuracy. He is guilty by association if nothing else and the familiar realization batters him to his knees. He drops to the floor and wishes she would shoot him dead. Her gun doesn't fire. And he's no longer on Mrs. Scully's carpet, wounded by Scully's words and waiting for the reprieve of death. He's in a bed in another dark room. Farmington, New Mexico, he thinks, two days after she shot him with a bullet that should have ended Krycek's life. Or is he in the AI's phony hospital room? It's possible he's in the motel where he and Scully stayed while chasing Marty Glenn and her brutal father in Wilmington, Delaware. It looks like the same room. Scully mentioned something during that case about a conversion disorder, a form of blindsight, a split consciousness where a person has a certain level of visual ability but they're not aware that they're actually seeing. Maybe he has reverse blindsight -- he's seeing things that aren't really there at all. They call that schizophrenia, he realizes. Delusion or not, Scully's beside him again, on his bed. He can barely make out her face in the dark. Is she real this time? He's not sure of anything anymore. "You shot me, Scully." "Yes, I did. You didn't give me much choice, you were going to shoot Krycek." "Why'd you shoot me?" "We went over that three years ago, Mulder." "Three...?" Years? What happened three months ago or three days? What happened yesterday? He scans his memory for a hint of recent events. He's pretty sure he recalls -- could it be? -- an insect-like creature scrambling across his ceiling, coming for him while he lies restrained in a hospital bed. Did that happen sometime after the case with the AI? Before? Jesus, maybe it never happened at all. "Mulder, the case is over. There's no more evidence to be gathered. There's only my hope that you'll be able to see past this delusion." Which one would that be, Scully? "Scully, *you* have to be willing to see." "I wish it were that simple." "You have to believe me. Nobody else on this whole damn planet does or ever will..." His words feel old. He's pretty sure he's used them before. Doesn't he plan to tell her something schmaltzy like she's his one in five billion? "Am I in Calumet Mercy Hospital?" he asks instead. "In Chicago? No, you were released a couple of weeks ago." "Maybe they should have kept me there." "You're not crazy, Mulder." Her lenient tone reminds him a bit of Nurse Nancy. "I feel...like I'm losing my mind." "I can help you feel better." She squeezes his shoulder. "Can you?" She strokes his face with her palms, fumbles for his lips with her mouth. Her touch feels like the brush of angel wings. She is his savior, surely a gift from God, so he lets himself tumble into her kiss, savoring the tip of her tongue as she prods his mouth; he believes he's being rescued. Her sigh bathes his face in well-being. Her fragrance swells his groin and he strains to press himself into her. But she is out of reach, all but the lovely flavor of her mouth. Her perfume steeps his sinuses when she surprises him by peeling her blouse from her shoulders and stripping the silky sleeves from her arms. This can't be real, can it? More like a dream come true than the nightmares he suffers. He wishes she would turn on a light so he can witness her undressing without the intervening veil of night. He hears her unhook her bra. She is little more than a specter in the dark. "Scully, how did you get into my room?" "You didn't lock it." She inches the blanket from his shoulders, drawing the covers down to his knees, exposing his bare skin. He shivers; the air-conditioned room washes coldly across his fiery erection. "I'm sure I--" She climbs onto the bed and straddles his hips, but her back is to him, she faces his feet. He wants to object, ask her to turn around, but the faint glow of her moonlight-white shoulders, her buttocks, locks his voice inside his chest. She's exquisite. He doesn't care that she may not be Scully. He doesn't care that she may only be a series of electronic impulses creating a chemical chain-reaction, a product of the AI. Her unlikely manifestation is more than welcome, a blessed break in the program's endless deceptive loop of hurt. Embraced by her thighs, he moans when she takes his erection in her hand and the warmth of her palm melts around him. Her touch arouses a fury of urgency, and a watery cry leaches from his lungs. She ebbs over him until he bumps her soft heat. Tickle. Desire. Need. He arches his back, eager to imbrue her with the slurry of his seed. He wants to be taken into her, to be cocooned in her munificence. When she sinks onto him, he feels delivered. His sigh expands to fill the room. His chest aches with the lead-heavy-fullness of his near-satisfied heart. "Why...Scully?" "Why what, Mulder?" She rakes his thighs with her nails and looks over one lunar shoulder. "Why...this...now?" She smiles. Clawing at him again, her fingers slice more deeply into his skin. Her nails bite like the scalpels she uses to dissect the dead. "Scully...?" He wants to reach out, touch her, stop the scissoring pain that scores his upper thighs. But he has no arms. No...no...no-- "Whoops, there go your legs." She giggles; her laugh vibrates around his withering lust. She hacks deliberately into his legs, lopping through muscle and bone. The pain in his thighs overwhelms him and a scream rips from his throat. "NOOOO!" When the sound fizzles to silence, he is alone. Throwing back the covers, he skids from the bed to stand on unfeeling feet, allowing the room's chill to shiver across his sweat-slicked limbs. Relieved to find he still has legs...and arms, he flexes his fingers, runs his palms over his bare unmarked thighs. Bending, hands on knees, he tries to catch his breath. His pulse pummels his eardrums. Gooseflesh ruffles his skin from coccyx to shoulders. His scrotum pins his testicles protectively against his body while his stomach threatens to spew last evening's supper onto the carpet. She tried to cut off my legs! Christ. Mulder sinks onto his haunches. To block out the lingering stink of cigarettes permeating the room's musty rug, he crushes his nose into the skin of one knee. He waits, trembling, for the dreadful tide in his stomach to settle. Jesus fucking Christ. Every night for almost three months he has had nightmares. Ever since Scully salvaged him from the trailer in Fairfax County, Virginia...from the AI. He thinks he managed to hide his recurring dreams from her for several weeks. But when his hallucinations invaded his waking hours and he zoned out in the elevator outside their office, she finally discovered his nasty secret. Was he actually curled in a fetal position in the far corner of the descending elevator car? Thank God no one else saw him. The funny thing is, he doesn't remember getting into the elevator in the first place. In his mind, he is always, always, always in the AI's damn hospital, strapped to a gurney. EMTs. Nurses that look like Barbie dolls. A surgeon so ancient he can barely walk. "What's going on?" Mulder asks for the umpteenth time. "Severe tissue injuries to the upper extremities. We've got ourselves a real crispy critter, here. Alert the burn unit. Tell them to scramble the surgical team." "What's that smell?" His wrists are scorched; the odor is overwhelming. "Just relax. 120 BP 130 over 80. Charring at contact site, along path of current, and at exit point. Looks like the charge grounded through both arms. We've got a lot of work to do here, people, if we're going to save him." Please. "My arms hurt." "That's a good sign." Blades. Saws. Cutters. An ancient surgeon. "No, wait... Call my doctor. You have to call...my doctor. Call Dr. Scully. Please call Dr. Scully." And then she's there...with him in the elevator of the Hoover Building. Scully coaxes him out of his delusion, tugging him from the elevator, getting him miraculously to his feet, steering him into their office. She makes him promise to get help, see a shrink. She calls for an appointment. Dr. Cannon. The name sounds deadly. "Agent Mulder, post-traumatic stress disorder has been called shell shock or battle fatigue syndrome." "I'm well aware of the history and symptoms of PTSD." The doctor's heavy features lift -- he offers Mulder a tolerant smile. "And I'm well aware of your academic background, Agent. I hope you understand, you're the victim in this case, not the physician." "Everyone who experiences trauma does not require treatment." "True, some recover with the help of family, friends or clergy. But many need professional treatment to recover from the psychological damage that can result from experiencing, witnessing, or participating in an overwhelmingly traumatic event." Mulder's tie feels too tight but he leaves it pinching his neck, convinced the doctor will read too much into its removal. "Have you experienced flashbacks, Agent Mulder -- sudden, vivid memories accompanied by painful emotions that take over your attention?" "No." "No? Didn't Dr. Scully find you reexperiencing your trauma in an elevator car?" "I wasn't...no." The doctor's office feels like a damn straightjacket, rendering him once more armless. Maybe Dr. Cannon is another of the AI's inventions, too. Can he be sure of anything anymore? Just because it feels real and hurts and scares the shit out of him doesn't mean the events are happening in the actual world, outside of his mind. More likely they're stimulated by the electrical impulses of the AI. Christ, he might be strapped to the machine right now...he might still be in that goddamn trailer. "Scully! Please, please help me!" "Mulder, it's me." Her voice. Again. Always. Please let it really be her this time. "Is it you, Scully? How can I be sure?" "Take these." Twin tablets rest in the palm of her hand. "What are they?" He raises his head. Another bed, another room. His apartment? No, hers. Can the AI know what Scully's apartment looks like? Her bedspread, her Bible, a picture of the two of them, dressed in matching FBI jackets, squinting into the morning sun, their hair flailed by the wind. When was this photo taken? And when did she frame it and set it beside her bed? An unstoppable plea wells up in his chest. "Help me, please!" "Take these," she repeats. "Are they poison? I-I don't think I want any pills." "They'll moderate the flashbacks. Trust me." "I don't know if you're really you, Scully. I don't know what's real." "Look me in the eyes, Mulder. Feel my hand." She clasps her hand over his and its immediacy singes him. Her pulse hammers the backs of his fingers. "You're in my apartment, Mulder, really." She pats him, caressing the truth into him. "Fairfax County was three months ago. Although you've continued to work, you've been experiencing -- and hiding -- flashbacks and waking nightmares for weeks. Yesterday I found you in the elevator and took you to Dr. Canon." She offers the pills once more. "You're going to get through this, Mulder. I'll be here to help. Trust me." Can he believe her? She's saying what he most wants to hear. He lifts his eyes to hers. A sky-blue nimbus, corona to the eclipse of Scully's jet-black pupil, thins to a mere line as he stares into her soul. He detects her spirit there, limitless beneath the confines of her flesh. She is more than mere electrical and chemical impulses coursing through meat and bone. He sees she is made of innumerable angels, the best side of human nature, and her blessed proximity promises to heal his wounds, leaving little room for his fear and his pain and his doubt. She is the truth he seeks. He wraps desperate arms around her, anchoring his peripatetic psyche and hanging on to her for dear life. THE END Authors notes: Feedback, good or bad, is welcome on this or any of my stories. I don't even pretend to be a professional writer, so any pearls of wisdom are very welcome. Send comments to cindyet@tdstelme.net.